In Clives Command | Page 6

when, having crossed the valley, he
began the long ascent that led past the site of Tyrley Castle. But when
he again reached a stretch of level road he stepped out more briskly, for
the darkness of the autumn night was moment by moment contracting
the horizon, and he had still several miles to go on the unlighted road.
Even as the thought of his dark walk crossed his mind he caught sight
of the one light that served as a never-failing beacon to night travelers
along that highway. It came from the windows of a wayside inn, a
common place of call for farmers wending to or from Drayton Market,
and one whose curious sign Desmond had many times studied with a
small boy's interest.
The inn was named the "Four Alls": its sign, a crude painting of a table
and four seated figures, a king, a parson, a soldier, and a farmer.

Beneath the group, in a rough scrawl, were the words--
Rule all: Pray all: Fight all: Pay all.
As Desmond drew nearer to the inn, there came to him along the silent
road the sound of singing. This was somewhat unusual at such an hour,
for folk went early to bed, and the inn was too far from the town to
have attracted waifs and strays from the crowd. What was still more
unusual, the tones were not the rough, forced, vagrant tones of tipsy
farmers; they were of a single voice, light, musical, and true.
Desmond's curiosity was flicked, and he hastened his step, guessing
from the clearness of the sound that the windows were open and the
singer in full view.
The singing ceased abruptly just as he reached the inn. But the
windows stood indeed wide open, and from the safe darkness of the
road he could see clearly, by the light of four candles on the high
mantel shelf, the whole interior of the inn parlor. It held four persons.
One lay back in a chair near the fire, his legs outstretched, his chin on
his breast, his open lips shaking as he snored. It was Tummus Biles, the
tranter, who had driven a tall stranger from Chester to the present spot,
and whose indignation at being miscalled Jehu had only been appeased
by a quart of strong ale. On the other side of the fireplace, curled up on
a settle, and also asleep, lay the black boy, Scipio Africanus. Desmond
noted these two figures in passing; his gaze fastened upon the
remaining two, who sat at a corner of the table, a tankard in front of
each.
One of the two was Job Grinsell, landlord of the inn, a man with a red
nose, loose mouth, and shifty eyes--not a pleasant fellow to look at, and
regarded vaguely as a bad character. He had once been head
gamekeeper to Sir Willoughby Stokes, the squire, whose service he had
left suddenly and in manifest disgrace. His companion was the stranger,
the negro boy's master, the man whose odd appearance and manner of
talk had already set Desmond's curiosity a-buzzing. It was clear that he
must be the singer, for Job Grinsell had a voice like a saw, and
Tummus Biles knew no music save the squeak of his cartwheels. It
surprised Desmond to find the stranger already on the most friendly, to

all appearance, indeed, confidential terms with the landlord.
"Hale, did you say?" he heard Grinsell ask. "Ay, hale as you an' me, an'
like to last another twenty year, rot him."
"But the gout takes him, you said--nodosa podagra, as my friend Ovid
would say?"
"Ay, but I've knowed a man live forty year win the gout. And he dunna
believe in doctor's dosin'; he goes to Buxton to drink the weeters when
he bin madded wi' the pain, an' comes back sound fur six month."
"Restored to his dear neighbors and friends--caris propinquis--"
"Hang me, but I wish you'd speak plain English an' not pepper your talk
win outlandish jabber."
"Patience, Job; why, man, you belie your name. Come, you must humor
an old friend; that's what comes of education, you see; my head is
stuffed with odds and ends that annoy my friends, while you can't read,
nor write, nor cipher beyond keeping your score. Lucky Job!"
Desmond turned away. The two men's conversation was none of his
business; and he suspected from the stranger's manner that he had been
drinking freely. He had stepped barely a dozen paces when he heard the
voice again break into song. He halted and wheeled about; the tune was
catching, and now he distinguished some of the words--
Says Billy Norris, Masulipatam, To Governor Pitt: "D'ye know who I
am, D'ye know who I am, I AM, I AM? Sir William Norris,
Masulipatam."